World War II Project - 28mm Village Church - Sarissa Precision - The Walls Part 7

After a bit of a break for ReaperCon its time to dive back into the Church. I can see a light at the end of the tunnel now so I want to push through this project and move on to a couple of others.

I'm continue moving forward with the walls. Again everything is easier when they are flat. Here I have added the exterior detail to the windows and started added the stone edging for the interior arches. At this point its just a lot of cutting, nothing terribly difficult. I also started adding the interior window detail, again I'm keeping this simple, its not going to get a lot of scrutiny during a game so I'm okay with it.

I have come to a bit of a stand still with the stained glass. I realized that I need something to sandwich them into place with. If I use the cardboard that I have been using then it will be slightly "higher" than the surrounding stonework. I have to decide if that's going to bother me or not. But I do need to cut out enough of those pieces to add match the configuration you see from the outside.

These are the interior arches, cut out and ready to be installed

The combination view. Exterior details visible while the interior arch stones are glued in place,

A couple of arches after the glue has set

And here is the arch all cut out, 

Acquisition - Modelu - HO and O Scale

Since I batched painted that group of HO figures I have been sort of looking for something of a higher quality. The Preiser figures are fine for background figures but the planned layout is not very deep and there will be a definite need for some better quality figures in the foreground areas. I have done a little research on the various model railroad forums looking for what other folks think are better. Two keep coming up Miniprints and Modelu. I have been looking at both online and while I will buy something from Miniprints at some point I'm not impressed with the offerings I see online at this point.

I have, obviously, spent a lot of time on the Modelu site as well. Both of these are 3D print companies. Miniprints seems to follow the more traditional "sculpted" method while Modelu is doing 3D scanning of people in the appropriate "costumes".  I decided to pull the trigger on the Modelu figures first as I'm really curious about how good the scanning is. The photos online certainly look impressive.

For this first foray I selected the Railroad & Lineside pack 9029-087 and -048 Transitional Era Crew Bundle. One pack in HO and one pack in O just to see how much of a difference there might be scaling the files up and down between different scales.

The figures arrived yesterday (they were out of stock, basically just needed to be printed) from the UK and I must say at first glance I'm pretty impressed. I think I'm going to work on these as soon as the church is finished. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

HO Scale 9029-087 Transitional Era Crew Bundle. 5 railroad crew figures basically fresh off the printer.

Here is a better look as they come out of the package

I went ahead and cut them apart to make them easier to clean up

Here is the HO group after a rough clean up. Mostly the bottom of the feet and removing the supports

HO Scale 9029-48 Transitional Era Crew Bundle. The same 5 crew figures

Here they are after the same rough prep

A close up from the front

and from the back.

I received a 15% discount for my first order from Modelu which made the two packs come to 44.52 (in pounds) which works out to be about $55 so each individual mini was about $5.50 after shipping. That's pretty good for the O Scale and I was thinking a bit outrageous for the HO Scale (although the HO pack was 15 pounds and the O Scale pack was 25 pounds), again though that's just quickie math. Using this average these are still cheaper than Miniprints HO scale figures. But to be fair I do need to order from them to get a good feel for the product. Right now its a big thumbs up for the Modelu.

Acquisition - More Paints - Scale 75

Like many painters I always seem to be in search of the next best paint. In this case oil paint. I have found that I'm using a lot more oil paints for weathering vehicles and I'm branching out to figures as well. I was curious about the Scale 75 brand and decided to get some of the basic colors and give them a shot. In addition they have an interesting line of inks so I through that into the order as well. I think they could be quite useful for puddles and stuff. The color selections reminds of the ones that use to be available for Secret Weapon.

With new brushes on the desk and new paints to try I think I'll finish the Church build and move on to some figures. I'm a little jazzed to get back to some of my painting projects with the thought of having them ready for ReaperCon 2024 (some of these have been in the works for years!).

The selections: Scenery (top left), Core (top right) and Poison Flasks (bottom)

Cartoon Wednesday (a day late)

 

ReaperCon 2023 - This is all I got

I think I have become somewhat jaded with game conferences in general. I do love to go to ReaperCon, its definitely unique in the miniature hobby world. But as I have managed to wean myself off of the "oh shiny" syndrome (not completely mind you) I find that I don't really buy much at the show anymore. It may also have something to do that since my part of the show typically starts in March, that by September I'm already tired of the whole thing.

None the less, I did actually spend money this year which maybe the first time in three or four years now. From Scale 75 I bought four new brushes. These are from Avante Art World and they have two types: Kolinsky Lux and Kolinsky Plus. The Kolinsky Lux are pure Kolinsky sable brushes, I picked up a #1 and a #2. They are roughly equivalent in size to my DaVinci Maestro Series 10 brushes. The Kolinsky Plus are a hybrid brush, the core is synthetic and the outer layer is Kolinsky sable. These seem to run a little small so I picked up a #2 and a #3 as they seem roughly equivalent to the #1 and #2 in their Kolinsky Lux line. I'm definitely interested in finding out how these perform as I typically stay away from synthetic brushes in general.

My other purchase was from Turbo Dorks (who make a metallic paint that I'm interested in trying but I wasn't going to risk paint in our carry on) a wooden painting handle. I have a plastic one and I find that I don't really use it but I thought maybe the feel of the wood might provide me some extra incentive to use it. I think its because they all seem a little short in my hand but the designer showed my how he holds it which is different from the way I was holding them. I'll give it a try and at the end of the day I have a template to work from if I decide to turn my own, maybe from a nice piece of walnut.

Four brushes and a painting handle, not very impressive

The gold label Kolinsky Lux are on the top, the silver label Kolinsky Plus